Lily White is Isaacs's most complex book to date. It took her one year to do the outline (compared to three to four weeks each for her other novels' outlines) and two additional years to write. The murder mystery plot came first, Isaacs says, and then she needed to write the other part of the story to know what made Lee who she was.

The book drew mostly positive reviews, except for Time Magazine's, which praised the mystery half but called Lee's life story "whiny" and "the sort of droning stuff therapists are paid to listen to."

Other reviewers described Lee as "toughtalking, marshmallow-hearted" and said the entire book was great fun to read.

Some found it humorous. Others consider it her most serious novel. The author herself says she cannot judge these qualities in her fiction, but goes on to explain that one of her goals was...